golden age humbuckers

[shapiro]

hi

im new to this site and guitar making, and i need some help with how i should wire the electronics. I looked at the wiring diagrams on this site, and noticed that all of the humbucker diagrams have a green wire...my pickups have only a red, white, and black wire. they are golden age humbuckers that i bought from stewmac.com. i also have 2 pots (one for volume and one for tone) and this 3 way switch: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...p_Switches.html

i think i also need to by a capacitor for the tone knob...which one do i get?

so how do i wire all of this together?

thanks

[Southpa]

Welcome to the board! Your pickups come in little plastic cannisters with paper inserts wrapped around the inside. All the schematics and instructions are on that paper. Also, the info can be found at the Stewmac website.

The standard tone capacitor used with most HB's is .047 microfarad.

Putting it all together is fairly simple if you understand some basic concepts about electricity (grounding and how the parts work is essential). Also, there is a bit of soldering involved. Guitarnuts is a good resource for getting things clear. Cool! They have a new format!

[shapiro]

hey

thanks for the response

the pickups have diagrams with them but i dont see a diagram to wire a switch to it. I did a search on the forums and someone else had 3-wire humbuckers and said that they soldered the red and white wires together and then grounded the black wire. should i do this? would i then wire them like regular pickups? like this? http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/suppo...one1switch.html

by the way, i have a 500k pot and a 250k pot, not sure if that matters. i was told i should get a 500k for volume and a 250k for tone. and doesnt that determine the capacitator?

ill look through that guitarnuts site. it looks confusing

thanks

[lovekraft]

Wire the pickups with the red wire to the switch and the bare wire to ground for normal humbucking operation, and leave the white wire disconnected unless you're wiring a coil-cut switch. Use the 500k pot for the volume and the 250k for the tone. The StewMac switch wires up like this:

Don't forget to leave out the .001 uF cap across the volume pot, and use something like this for your tone cap (available at yer local raydeo shark, or wherever fine cheap electronic components are sold ).

You can add coil cut to this setup any time by simply wiring in a SPDT on-off-on switch that shorts the white wire to ground (selects the North coil) or hot (selects the South coil). HTH.

[shapiro]

thank you for clarifying that. i just have one more question

do i need a different kind of switch since i have humbuckers? something like this: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...p_Switches.html

(i ask this because it looks like the 3-way switch in the pickup schematics on projectguitar.com look different than the 3-way switch on the humbucker scmenatics.)

then i would use that switch in this schematic:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/suppo...1tone_3way.html and i would use my red wire as the wire in the schematic, my black wire as ground, and the white wire would just sit there. correct?

thanks

by the way, in the schematic that you provided, isnt that supposed to be regular pickups and not humbuckers? or am i completely wrong?

[lovekraft]

Nope, that switch will work fine. As for the pickups in the pic, yes, they're single coils, but you'll wire your humbuckers exactly the same way - just connect the red wire(s) to the switch and the bare wire(s) to the ground point on the back of the volume pot. That toggle switch will also work fine, it's just a matter of which you prefer.

[shapiro]

what kind of pots are in that schematic (the one you provided)? i was planning on using a 500k for volume and a 250k for tone, do i need different capacitors?

[Southpa]

You can use that diagram for wiring up your switch. On the Golden Age humbuckers the red is the hot wire that is wired to the switch. If you want to use the pickups as just regular humbuckers then simply tape the end off the white wire to insulate from other contacts. There is no black wire on the Golden age pickups, unless they have changed something since the last time I ordered them. Should be white, red and bare. Red goes to switch, white is taped off and bare is soldered to the volume pot casing. If there IS a black wire then consider that as a ground wire. The white wire is used for coil cutting the pickup, that is, making it operate like a single coil or a HB. But that will require the use of a separate switch and things get a little more complicated.

As far as doing the job yourself you have to have a pretty good idea of what you are doing. You can't jump in without understanding some basics. Therefore you have to from as many sources as possible before continuing.

Read the Wiring 101 section on Stewmac's website.

There are reasons for using specific components for specific applications. A 250 Kohm pot and .022 microfarad cap are generally used for single coil pickups and 500Kohm pots/ .047 cap for humbuckers. Why? Because those are the tried and true combinations that work best for getting optimum performance from your pickups.

[lovekraft]

...Use the 500k pot for the volume and the 250k for the tone... and use something like this for your tone cap...

You could use just about any cap between .1uf and .01 uF, but .047 uF is the de facto standard (what most people use), as Southpa said in that first reply (there's a thread in the Electronics Tutorials section that has info about various tone cap values and the effect on sound - give it a read when you get a chance). Since you have the StewMac switch, use the StewMac wiring diagram with the pots you have, use a .047 uF cap for the tone cap, leave out the .001uF cap across the volume pot, and everything will work fine.

<edit> Sorry, Southpa, we must have been typing at the same time - you're absolutely correct! I keep forgetting to add that "...don't try this at home.." line. Like the man says, if you don't have soldering skills and a basic grasp of wiring diagrams and techniques, it would be a good idea to get some help.</edit>

[shapiro]

i think i understand it all now. thank you all very much for your help

[shapiro]

i edited that diagram

is this correct?

[lovekraft]

Looks good to me - good luck with it!

[shapiro]

this is probably important-

which way is that orianted? because the pots have 3 things to connect to, but am i looking at this diagram with the shafts on the pots pointing up or down?

also, could you explain the symbol for the output jack? which part on the jack is the box in the symbol and which is the squiggly line?

[shapiro]

i just noticed something

look at the tone pots, they are wired differently. which one should i use? im guessing the top one because thats the kind of switch that i have, but i just want to make sure.

[lovekraft]

It doesn't matter - the two circuits are functionally equivalent. Use the StewMac circuit, it explicitly avoids a potential ground loop.